Something that's been bugging the HELL out of me since I realized what was really going on... as I describe in the following movie review...
THE SAINT (1997)
The LONE WOLF (7 of 10)
An orphan grows up to become a professional thief. He runs afoul of a criminal organization who coerces him to steal something for them. He winds up falling in love with his victim, and decides to reform, taking down the baddies in the process.
First things first: I loved this movie. I saw it in theatres twice, and bought the videotape when it came out.
Second: I fell in love with the character played by Elisabeth Shue in this film. It was very personal for me, because the personality of the character she played reminded me more than anyone I’d ever seen of a girl I was actually in love with when the film came out, who tragic circumstances prevented me from being with.
Third: I thought the character played by Rade Serbedzija, “Ivan Tretiak”, totally out-ranked every single Bond villain ever seen onscreen. It’s only recently I came to realize that he may may well have been modelled on real-life Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
That said, this movie has always had some MAJOR things wrong about it. MAJOR.
THE SAINT was one of a number of Hollywood films in the 80s & 90s featuring classic characters that, for reasons that make absolutely ZERO sense to me, decided to concoct brand-new “origin” stories for their characters, that had absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with the characters the films were allegedly about! The others were CONAN THE BARBARIAN (which I found dull, slow, depressing, and boring as hell) and THE SHADOW (whose new origin completely ruined what for me had been an otherwise very well-made and highly-entertaining movie).
In the case of THE SAINT, Simon Templar had become, in the 1980s, my #1 favorite fictional character. In the books, he is, essentially, “a modern Robin Hood”. He comes from a well-to-do family, went to all the best schools, surrounded himself with a circle of like-minded friends, and dedicated his life to the the pursuit of justice, almost always at the expense of “law and order”.
Basically, the character in this film IS NOT “Simon Templar”. AT ALL!
Even the way that the name “Simon Templar” in the film is an alias the character came up with, whereas in the books, “Simon Templar” is his REAL name.
For many years, this bothered me. When I look online, it continues to bother me that so many people will complain about how they made “so many changes”—usually while being unaware that what’s onscreen is so completely “wrong”.
It was only this past year I finally found out EXACTLY what they did when they did this film. It’s not that they made “so many changes”. It really isn’t. It’s that they FAITHFULLY ADAPTED THE WRONG SOURCE MATERIAL!
This film is actually a rather-faithful adaptation of Louis Joseph Vance’s 1914 novel “The Lone Wolf”, the 1st of 8 novels to feature “Michael Lanyard” between then and 1934. There were 24 films between 1917-1949, as well as a radio series in 1948 and a tv series in 1955. Like the character in this 1997 movie, “Michael Lanyard” was an assumed name. The film also shares in common with the 2006 Daniel Craig film CASINO ROYALE that it faithfully adapts a classic novel while adding many new elements, and UPDATING the action to the present day!
Now, if you can imagine that 2006 film being presented as a movie about “Matt Helm”… while in fact adapting Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel… you see the problem.
I’ll say it again: the character played by Val Kilmer IS NOT “Simon Templar”. AT ALL.
Considering that, legend has it, SAINT author Leslie Charteris once sued RKO Pictures for plagiarism, because their FALCON series was so similar to their own SAINT films… somebody should have been SUED over this.
(1-30-2023)
Previous Thread
